Black Sunflowers

It's just beginning to become sunflower season here on our farm. The Farmer has been endlessly toiling in his field since June. I haven't written about the progress this year but let me just say, it is arduous. He plows and tills the field (or finds someone with the proper equipment to do it for him). Then he handplants each and every seed. In the past he tried a semi-mechanical seeder but it didn't work out because of the variety of seed sizes. And then there is the weeding which is a never ending job as any gardener knows.

Finally we've got some blooms happening. These are Moulin Rouge Sunflower - an incredibly dark sunflower which blooms in 65 to 80 days. The first blooms are sneaking out over the top of the row.


Black or blackish flowers are all the rage now. Last year, MS Living featured a beautiful spread on very dark flowers. Perhaps you saw it. The latest Domino Magazine did a feature on black flowers this month. I guess we're right on target with our gardening trend not that we try. I order a large variety of different kinds of sunflowers and enjoy them all.

Photographing these dark sunflowers is difficult but here are two shots that didn't turn out bad. The black sunflowers look gorgeous against the blue sky.


Here the same bouquet is set against a mossy green shed and the light was hitting them just right.


Sunflowers can't help but make anyone smile.